Will there be a New Legend in Apex Season 20? Apex Legends by Respawn Entertainment is a popular free-to-play battle royale game that was released in 2019. The game features different characters called “Legends” that have unique abilities and playstyles. With each new season of Apex Legends, there is usually a new Legend added to the character roster along with other gameplay changes and battle pass additions.
However, for Apex Legends Season 20, Respawn Entertainment has confirmed that there will not be a new Legend joining the roster. This has come as a surprise to many fans who expect new content with every season. In this article, we’ll take a look at why there is no new Legend in Apex Season 20 and what players can expect instead.
Reasons Why There is No New Legend in Season 20:
There are a few potential reasons why Respawn decided not to add a new Legend for the milestone 20th season of Apex Legends:
Focusing on Legend Balance and Meta Changes
With over 15 Legends already, balancing character abilities and team compositions has become more difficult. Respawn likely wants to take a season to focus on fine-tuning existing Legends instead of introducing a new one. They can monitor pick rates, win rates, and community feedback to help inform future balance changes. Less change also allows the meta and ranked system to stabilize.
Preventing Too Much Feature Creep
Adding new Legends every season inevitably leads to feature creep, where later additions invalidate or overlap too much with previous ones. Taking a break allows Respawn to ideate more unique Legend concepts for future seasons without overcomplicating the formula. It also gives them time to polish other planned features.
Opportunity to Improve Other Aspects of the Game
No new Legend means more resources can be allocated to improving other parts of the game like servers, UI, cosmetics, battle pass, etc. Respawn is likely working on major gameplay additions for Season 20 outside of a new character.
Testing Community Reactions
Removing the expectation for a new Legend tests how the community reacts to seasons without a marquee content addition. This could influence the cadence of new Legends added in future seasons based on player engagement.
Plans Could Have Changed Mid-Development
Respawn may have originally planned a new Legend for Season 20 but later decided to push it back. If the character needs more development time or doesn’t fit the theme, it’s reasonable to push them to Season 21 rather than rush their release.
Overall, not adding a new Legend for Apex Season 20 allows Respawn to experiment while putting time into improving game balance and new gameplay initiatives.
What to Expect in Apex Legends Season 20?
While there won’t be a new playable Legend for Season 20, Respawn will still need to add substantial content and changes to keep players engaged, especially with competition from games like Warzone and Fortnite.
Here are some of the additions likely to come in Apex Season 20:
Map Updates
Respawn tweaks the battle royale maps every few seasons, so fans can expect map changes around the half-way point of Year 4. A new point of interest, map rotation, or Olympus enhancements could freshen up gameplay.
Legend Buffs/Nerfs Based on Pick Rates
With no new Legend disrupting balance, Respawn can focus on buffing underused characters and nerfing overpowered ones. Legends like Gibraltar, Valkyrie, Wraith, and Bloodhound seem most in need of changes.
Ranked Changes
Season 20 is likely to bring updates to ranked leagues, entry costs, scoring, and rewards based on match data and community feedback from Season 19. Predator tier also typically gets improvements.
Battle Pass Content
The Season 20 battle pass will probably have a new set of 100 tiers with fresh themes, skins, emotes, charms, skydive emotes, music packs, and the coveted reactive skins that evolve during matches.
In-Game Events and Cosmetic Content
In addition to battle pass content, Apex usually runs several limited-time in-game events each season featuring earnable skins, trackers, badges, gun charms, and more to keep player engagement high between content drops.
Meta Shift
Even without new abilities, weapon changes often indirectly buff or nerf Legends each season. The evolving meta and team compositions should keep gunplay and abilities feeling fresh.
Quality of Life Improvements
Respawn uses downtime between features to polish UI, visuals, audio, menus, etc. Players can expect optimizations and modernization based on fan feedback.
Bug Fixes and Performance Upgrades
Season 20 will also bring optimization to improve framerates, fix persistent bugs, reduce lag and crashes, address exploits, and improve the overall quality and stability of the game.
So while a new Legend would generate more hype for Season 20, focusing resources on other improvements allows Apex to evolve meaningfully.
Will There Be a New Legend Again in Season 21?
While Respawn is skipping a new Legend for one season, Apex Legends will almost certainly add another character in Season 21 a few months later.
Season 21 which would launch around August 2024 will line up with the 5 year anniversary of Apex Legends’ original launch in February 2019. Respawn will want to celebrate that milestone with substantial content additions.
Assuming player numbers and revenue remain strong leading up to Season 21 (which seems likely based on the continued success of Season 19), EA would allow Respawn to invest in more development resources than ever before for Apex’s anniversary season.
That means Season 21 is the perfect opportunity to drop a spectacular new Legend that players have been eagerly anticipating as well as other groundbreaking content.
Here are reasons why players can count on a new Legend returning in Season 21:
Major Anniversary Season Event
The 5 year anniversary is too big an opportunity to not have a new Legend. Season 21 will likely be marketed as a rebirth for Apex with huge gameplay and event plans centered around this milestone moment.
Legend in Final Stages of Development
Even with no new addition in Season 20 it’s likely Respawn has had a Legend in the concept pipeline that is now closer to final polish and balancing for release in Season 21 instead.
Recently Hinted Teasers
Respawn may intentionally tease small hints about an upcoming Legend before Season 21 to reinvigorate hype after the rarity of no new Legend the season prior.
Opportunity to Showcase Abilities
Apex Legends Global Series esports events planned around the Season 21 timeframe give Respawn a prime opportunity to showcase exciting new Legend abilities to a live audience.
Player Retention
While taking a season off from new Legends makes sense to upgrade other areas of the game, continuing that trend any longer risks player drop-off by removing such expected content.
While anything can change during development, the stars seem aligned for Respawn to come back strong from their brief hiatus by launching a game changing new Legend as the headlining act of Apex’s epic 5 year anniversary season.
The future looks bright for more Legends to eventually join the diverse Apex roster. But for now players eagerly await to experience gameplay enhancements coming in Season 20 and can expect ability reveals and lore trailers to return the following season.
Conclusion:
After over a year of new Legend releases, Respawn Entertainment has decided to forego adding a new playable character for Apex Legends in Season 20, which launches May 2024. Breaking from tradition allows them to focus resources on polishing existing Legends, improving game stability and quality of life, as well as develop revamps for maps, weapons, and progression systems.
While some fans may be disappointed not to get new abilities, it offers a rare window to strengthen Apex’s foundations before the major 5-year anniversary milestone kicks off with Season 21 in August. With plenty of battle pass content, events, changes, and fixes planned it should still feel like an action-packed season. Then players can look forward to the highly anticipated release of a spectacular new Legend later in 2024 just in time for some exciting real-life Apex Global Series Championship events.
Skip one season to prepare for even bigger ones ahead seems to be the development roadmap. Apex Legends continues to evolve ambitiously with or without new playable characters. But they’ll be back soon enough with awesome designs in development right now destined to make a thrilling gameplay debut not too long from today.